Q25 - The availability of television reduces the amount of r

[mshinners]

Question Type:
Match the Reasoning

Stimulus Breakdown:
When there's no TV, people read more. When there is TV, people read less. Therefore, TV causes people not to read.

Answer Anticipation:
Two things are correlated (When X, also Y; when no X, no Y). Therefore, one of them causes the other ("reduces").

Correct answer:
(A)

Answer choice analysis:
(A) Looks solid on a first pass (money and interest rates are correlated; therefore, money "stabilizes" interest rates - a causal statement). After ruling out the others, I'd pick it.

(B) Premise mismatch. There are too many ideas here (candy, blood sugar, appetite, healthy food).

(C) Premise mismatch. There are too many terms (global warming, CO2, and industrial pollution). Also, the premises are causal, not correlative.

(D) Premise and conclusion mismatch. There are too many terms (confidence, supercilious, votes). Additionally, the conclusion is that there are many factors, not that one of the discussed factors causes the other.

(E) Tempting. If I was down to the wire and between this and (A), I'd go with (A) because answers that share a similar topic are usually wrong (here, this answer shares the topic of "reading" with the stimulus). Outside of that, the more subtle reason is a premise mismatch. The stimulus sets up the first half of each correlation with "When TV is available/unavailable". This argument flips it, with both correlations relating more "other activities" with less reading. This answer would have to state more other/less reading, less other/more reading to match.

Takeaway/Pattern:
Even though this is a Match the Reasoning question, it can still be flawed. Knowing those flawed-reasoning structures can help in Matching questions!

#officialexplanation

[king_matt]

I understand why A is the correct answer, however I had some difficulty reaching a definitive reason why. Can someone please explain the thought process in determining why A is correct and the others are not.

Working through the problem did the following:

Premise 1: Television unavailable, nearly universal increase in reading. [ -TV => IR ]
Premise 2: Television available again, level of reading relapse to previous level [ TV => -IR ]

Conclusion: Availability of television reduces amount of reading children do.

Flaw: Mistakenly identifying the scenario without television available as the normal state of affairs and thus believing that television reduced the amount of reading, when perhaps another way to look at it could be that lack of television increases the amount of reading children do?


Thank you

[haeeunjee]

Not sure if this is still necessary, but --

I paraphrased the stimulus:
When X is absent, Y increases. When X is present, Y does not increase.
Thus, X causes/reduces/affects the amount of Y.

This is classic correlation/causation fallacy by usage of inverse reasoning. In particular, the author has tried to prove causation by stating two situations in which X is either absent or present, and showing the correlation with Y in each case.

B: Candy affects appetite. When candy isn’t consumed, Y happens.

But there is no other statement saying, “When candy IS consumed, Y….”

C: CO2 causes global warming. Pollution causes CO2. Therefore, pollution causes global warming.

This is a causal argument, but not via correlation. This is a causal chain, kinda like the transition property: A->B->C, therefore A->C. This does NOT give us two scenarios where X is either absent/present, and the supposed “effect” on Y.

D: Factors other than candidate political records affect voting behavior. Example: when candidates project confidence, they get votes. When they exhibit supercilious (disdainful/patronizing) facial expression, they lose votes.

This one was a contender at first because I thought it showed “When X is absent” and “When X is present,” but three things: (1) Being supercilious patronizing is not the absence/opposite of confidence. (2) The original stimulus did not give an example. Each sentence was about X and Y. This answer choice does not even mention “political records” (X) in its premises. Premises should have been something closer to “When candidates lack political record, …” and “When candidates have a substantial political record, …” (3) The conclusion of the stimulus was that there IS a causal relation between X and Y. This answer choice says that alternate causes BESIDES X are causally related to Y.

E: Adults read less than they once did because of other activities. The more time you spend on other activities, they less you read. The less you read, the more time you spend on other activities.

This should ring a warning bell because the subject matter - reading - is similar to that of the stimulus. Not a sole reason to eliminate, but something to keep in mind. The deeper reason this is wrong is because the premises should read something like: “The more time you spend on other stuff, you read less. The LESS TIME YOU SPEND on other stuff, you read more.” Instead, the second premise is just the first premise flipped/reversed. Not what we saw in the stimulus.

[rhkwk1441]

I agree with the poster above for the most part, but I just want to point out that this stimulus is NOT flawed.
(I mean as far as I understand. Please correct me if I am wrong.)

This stimulus may seem like a correlation / causation fallacy, but it's really not.
The 'direction' of argument, which suggests causation rather than a mere correlation, does indeed exist in the stimulus.
For example, take a look at the first premise: "When TV is made unavailable, a nearly universal increase in reading is reported."
This is equivalent to "When we did something to A, we observed B happening," which suggests clear cause and effect relationship.
This is different from a mere correlation of "A and B happens together."

Premise 1: Television unavailable --> increase in reading
Premise 2: Television available --> decrease in reading (i.e. no increase in reading)
Conclusion: Television availability decreases the amount of reading.

This can be simplified as:

Premise 1: lack of cause --> lack of effect
Premise 2: cause --> effect
Conclusion: "causation is there"

(A) Exact match!
cause: money supply fluctuate
effect: interest rate fluctuate

Premise 1: "Whenever the money supply fluctuates, interest rates tend to fluctuate" = cause --> effect
Premise 2: "When the money supply remains constant, interest rates tent to remain stable" = lack of cause --> lack of effect
Conclusion: "The money supply's remaining constant stabilizes interest rates" = "causation is there"

[sahara]

I still don't understand why the answer is not E. The stimulus compares the TV to reading scenario as going up and down. Answer A is talking about the money supply being constant. E seems to show the same up and down relationship as the stimulus.

[seychelles1718]

The reasoning structure in the stimulus is simple and clear and A seems very good during the first pass.
Is it a good idea to just pick A and move on without reading other 4 answer choices in simple, clear Parallel Reasoning problems like this one?

[ohthatpatrick]

It's worth considering that gamble, yes.

Here, it's the last question in the section, so the logic seems less applicable.

But generally, we need to cut corners on Match questions because otherwise they would suck too much time away from us.

People aggressively eliminate/defer based on Mismatched Conclusions.

And the correct answer is frequently (A) or (B). If you trust your work on problems like this, you had a clear recipe you were looking for, and you find an answer that accords with that, then pull the trigger.

Any time I pick an answer without reading all five answer choices, I circle that problem number so that if I have any extra time at the end of the section I can come back to check out the other answer choices.

[LukeM22]

(E) Tempting. If I was down to the wire and between this and (A), I'd go with (A) because answers that share a similar topic are usually wrong (here, this answer shares the topic of "reading" with the stimulus). Outside of that, the more subtle reason is a premise mismatch. The stimulus sets up the first half of each correlation with "When TV is available/unavailable". This argument flips it, with both correlations relating more "other activities" with less reading. This answer would have to state more other/less reading, less other/more reading to match.



#officialexplanation

I still don't get why this logic can't be used to also eliminate A, and I don't get why the logic that makes A right can't be applied to E. If A is right because the structure simply needs to be "Phenomenon X leads to Phenomenon Y; no X--> No Y", with no emphasis on directionality (increase/decrease), then E checks the box: X (more time other activities)--> Y (less reading).

And if the nature of the phenomenon-- that is, whether a quantity of something is increasing or decreasing or not changing at all-- is important enough to actually be grounds for elimination, then A isn't correct either, because the stimulus implies a decrease in Y with the existence of X.... which isn't the structure of answer A at all.

[ohthatpatrick]

I interpreted the original argument as:
We can tell that X causes Y.
When you take X away, Y goes away.
When X comes back, Y comes back.

(A) has that,
We can tell that "constant supply causes stable interest rates"
When "supply isn't constant", "interest rates aren't stable"
When "supply is constant", "interest rates are stable".

while (E) says
We can tell "other activities cause less reading"
When "other activities are there more, there's less reading"
and when "there's less reading, other activities are there more"

The covariation pair in (E) is expressed
When there's A, there's B
and when there's B, there's A

The covariation pairs expressed in the original and (A) are
When there's ~A, there's ~B
When there's A, there's B

[snoopy]

I agree with the poster above for the most part, but I just want to point out that this stimulus is NOT flawed.
(I mean as far as I understand. Please correct me if I am wrong.)

This stimulus may seem like a correlation / causation fallacy, but it's really not.
The 'direction' of argument, which suggests causation rather than a mere correlation, does indeed exist in the stimulus.
For example, take a look at the first premise: "When TV is made unavailable, a nearly universal increase in reading is reported."
This is equivalent to "When we did something to A, we observed B happening," which suggests clear cause and effect relationship.
This is different from a mere correlation of "A and B happens together."

Premise 1: Television unavailable --> increase in reading
Premise 2: Television available --> decrease in reading (i.e. no increase in reading)
Conclusion: Television availability decreases the amount of reading.

This can be simplified as:

Premise 1: lack of cause --> lack of effect
Premise 2: cause --> effect
Conclusion: "causation is there"

(A) Exact match!
cause: money supply fluctuate
effect: interest rate fluctuate

Premise 1: "Whenever the money supply fluctuates, interest rates tend to fluctuate" = cause --> effect
Premise 2: "When the money supply remains constant, interest rates tent to remain stable" = lack of cause --> lack of effect
Conclusion: "The money supply's remaining constant stabilizes interest rates" = "causation is there"

There is definitely a correlation/causation flaw. You can't simplify increases/decreases/rates into cause-effect situations. You're taking an observation (correlation) between two variables and inferring a casual relationship which is a big no-no.

The stim says there are increases and decreases in reading as a result of TV unavailability/availability. To say something increases and decreases refers to the relationship between two observations. In this case, more TV, less reading. Less TV, more reading.

Same thing in A. When money supply fluctuates, interest rates tend to fluctuate. When money supply is constant, interest rates tend to be stable. Again, observations on a relationship.

Then, the stim and answer A conclude with definite casual relationship rather than saying "these two activities are associate with each other" or "these two activities have a strong/moderate/weak relationship." That is the correlation = causation flaw.

(Also, thanks for clarifying why E was more wrong @ohthatpatrick)